SE version of my custom waltzing animation mod. (LE version: A Skyrim Waltz)This is a 3rd person animation - it won't work in 1st person. It's not a bug, just the nature of the mod.I'll be adding later some extracted poses from these animations for those of you who use them.

Quick and dirty video from my early tests, stuttering not included in the anim (was due to %#@*! FRAPS hijacking my FPS!).The animation has been polished since then - I'll eventually do a cleaner video later on.

HARD REQUIREMENTS

► FNIS SE version 7_4_5 or later,► SKSE64 version 2_0_16 or later,► SkyUI SE version 5_1 or later.

PARTIALLY INCLUDED

► PapyrusUtil SE partially included in Waltz v0.1bI'd advise that you use the latest version of PapyrusUtil instead, as my own install dates back a bit.► MfgConsole Fix partially included in Waltz v0.1bI'd advise that you use the latest version of MfgFix instead, as my own install is possibly outdated a bit.

A LITTLE BACKSTORY:

Okay, my Dovahkiin is better at ease with a warhammer than a flower bouquet even though he tries to behave like a gentleman (or some rough idea he formed about what that may be), but some female followers have been vehemently complaining: what's the point of all these lovely dresses and cleavaged outfits they can find at the forge if it's to roll around in the mud all day and charge draugrs all night?!.. There must be something more civilized to do in Skyrim than just rob Belethor and murder emperors, right?

Lydia's been looking all around for a proper dancing teacher, other than Cicero that is, but even Elisif had no clue. So, well, she decided to teach my Dovahkiin what she thought it was like, you know, 1,2,3... 1,2,3... can't be that hard, can it? Come on, be a nice Dovahkiin!.. Hoping to prove himself a gentleman, he kindly obliged (in some remote ruin's hidden chamber first, a Dovahkiin should never be laughing matter!). Turns out it's very hard!.. He sure is stiff in the joints and has absolutely no sense of rythm, but he keeps practising and at least the girls are happy(er) now...

Personal note: this is also my very first animation ever, so yeah, I'm still a bit stiff in the joints too... ;)INSTALLATION:

1. Make sure your install meets this mod's requirements: FNIS, SKSE, SkyUI - all SE versions of course.2. Pick and download only one main file version: v0.1a if you already have MfgFix and PapyrusUtil in your game, OR v0.1b if you do not have these tools installed in your game. As a general rule, it'd be better for you to have the original tools installed than those provided by any mod, including this one, especially when several mods of yours may provide different versions of the tools. Once than is done, install your main file with any mod manager of your choice - or manually if you know what you're doing,3. Do not forget to run FNIS for Users before you launch your game for the first time after installing the mod,4. Once in game, a new lesser power will be added to your inventory called "Dovah-Waltz".5. After a few minutes, you'll get a notification saying that a new MCM menu has been added to your Mod Configuration. One way to speed this up is to immediately reload your loaded save, MCM menu should then appear almost instantly.

HOW TO:

Once the mod is enabled, a new lesser power called "Dovah-Waltz" will automatically be added to your inventory. When used, it will find the closest actor in front of you and play the animation for as long as you let it play. When you want to end the animation, just press your activate key, and let the "exit" animation play - and that's it. Should you want to instantly end the animation for some reason, press your Jump key instead, this will bypass the exit anim.

The MCM menu will let you change the animation speed (10% slower, 10% faster, or default: honestly no huge difference, this was more of a test thing), customize the animation offset and actors' size, or toggle your Dovah-Waltz power in and out of your inventory to prevent cluttering it when needed. There's also a Debug option you can use, should you ever get stuck for some reason. And you can swap roles: you lead, or you follow (but this comes at the price of a lot of clipping and bad alignments (yeah, 'cause you know, male and female bodies are not exactly interchangeable... ;)).

CUSTOMIZABLE WALTZ MUSIC:

This mod also adds a music file which'll add some background music to the waltzing animation - default is a wonderful piece by Vindsvept, because of course I couldn't upload a Strauss waltz or Shostakovich's Waltz n°2 which I used in the video. You can replace it with whatever you like to customize that music, there are plenty of waltz music on the Internet, duration doesn't matter as the .esp is set to cycle the track anyway. Just convert your custom file to Xwm format first, rename it "WaltzMusic" and place it in your Data/Music/HoamaiiWaltz folder.

Xwm are way preferable as .wav are known to occasionally cause CTDs. You can use MultiXwm to convert your .mp3 or .wav files to .xwm (the provided link is an LE one but it works for SE and is easy to use - but there are other tools for SE which work just as well).

QUESTIONS AND POTENTIAL ISSUES: PLEASE READ

1. Why do my toons resize in animations?

Because all movements are created frame by frame and bone by bone in 3DS, for BOTH actors, and if actors are not the same height, they will never align properly in game. By default, both actors will rescale to a base of 1.0. You can however adjust this value in the MCM menu - just make sure to scale them both with an even multiplier.

Mods which modify actors' scales outside the scope of the CK can mess up the rescaling native functions. These are mods like RaceMenu (which I use too and gets along fine with custom animations as long as you do not modify actors' heights or scales in RaceMenu), NiOverride functions (which I use too, but not to modify actors' scales), some custom skeletons (but not all) and HDT High Heels - but there again, if you unequip high heels before the animation, actors will be properly aligned. On the other hand, mods which modify actors' scales or heights directly inside the game system and the CK, like Gender And Heights for instance, are completely safe.

2. Why do some body parts still clip while playing the animation?

I can assure you they don't in 3DS. This is a limitation from the game engine, causing small misalignments at runtime: even though the script rescales and positions both actors very precisely and both actors' animations are called simultaneously, there's always a split second difference and a few unit's fractions misplacement in game due to the game's limited floating point precision, which become even more noticeable as the actors move around - and the more script lag in your game, the worse it gets. Nothing I can do about it I'm afraid.

Of course, this will get even worse if your body type inflates boobs or butts or whatever you think the bigger the better. This was created with the most "natural looking" body types I could find (Better Males and Dream Girl at bodyslide 1, both Vanilla skeleton), it will look fine with Vanilla, UNP, original CBBE, Dream Girl, FavoredSoul and Sundracon).

3. Animation glitches and potential conflicts:

Mods which modify your camera, FOV, perspective, settings, or some custom skeletons, may cause all sorts of issues with animations. It's your game, your install, your load order, it's up to you to understand the stress you're adding to it all and investigate your issues. Even if I wanted to help, I don't use such mods and I really have no time to dig through them all. Just keep in mind that this mod works perfectly fine in a conflictless install.

4. Hey Hoamaii, please change/patch/add/convert/port/create...?

Nope, sorry. 2 actors, 99 bones per actor and per frame, over 2500 frames in total, plus I have a lot on my plate already: why don't you do it?

SPECIAL THANKS: - Fore for his amazing FNIS, - Pornphile for his very precious tutorials, rigs and tools, - CEO for putting together his tutorials, - mastercchris aka Zaz and Kentington for creating and sharing their paired animation rigs and tutorials, - Migal130 for sharing his animation scripting insights,- Bergzore for his Animation Lectures and Resources, - Nightasy as always for his wonderful tutorials which got me started with 3DS Max, - and last but not least, Vindsvept for sharing his musical creations which have been acompanying me through many years of modding,- I also want to thank Bethesda, not only for creating an everlasting game, but even more so for giving us the Creation Kit which enticed me to finally get under the hood of a game. I've learnt a lot from these amazing sandboxes: 3D modeling, texturing, coding, character creation, quest design, and lately animating... The fun never ends!- The Nexus, for gathering such an amazing community of modders always willing to share their experience, their secrets and findings, and lend a helpful hand. Cheers to you, guys!.

TOOLS USED:

3DS Max

HavokContentTools

PEN_Attribute_Holder

Pornphile 3DS Max XPMS rigs

Zaz resource for modders

Hktcnv

Hkxcmd

FNIS for modders

FNIS for users

SKSE

MCM

MfgConsole

PapyrusUtil

MultiXwm

TES5edit

Audition

Première

Photoshop

Papyrus

NotePad++

Skyrim Creation Kit

SOME OF MY OTHER MODS:

Do not upload to any other website than the Nexus or use any of this mod's created assets without asking my permission first. Thank you.